Salvation
by Andrivette
Summary: A fanfiction detailing the events in Mukuro's past, written in the first-person.
1. Scars

_**Salvation**_

a fanfiction by Andrivette

**Chapter 1: Scars  
**

* * *

Underneath one of the long sleeves of my blouse, down below where no one can see, there are scars on my wrist. Not the kind of scars you get from battle, from nobly defending what you believe. They aren't scars from a blade. They aren't scars from an accident. They aren't scars that were fought for, or desired, or chosen.

They are scars that rubbed into my skin, scars of servitude. Marks of shame. The scars tell about the times I was kept perfectly still, bound to a wall, or a floor, or myself. They are scars that someone else gave to me just because I was too damned weak to do anything about it.

Further up, I have scars of beatings, scars that only quaintly tell the story of how I was broken. Scars that are a record, my only proof, my lifelong keepsake, reminding me that life isn't just something that happens in your head. I'm not just crazy. That was where my pain had happened, even though the feeling itself is gone. Places on a map, history, carved like tally marks into my skin. "I was here. This was me."

Scars were all I brought with me into the world after seven years.

I vaguely remember times when I was a baby. I remember the operation. I remember being lonely and abused. I remember being taken from the arms of the one woman I had ever known to hold me, a woman who I now suppose resembles the unmarred half of me, a woman that I never knew and would never have a chance to know. All I was left with was an idea of this person who might have loved me, but I could never ask, and I could never learn.

I grew and I learned about others like me—others trapped and alone and weary. I tried to reach out to them, but I was turned away, or stopped.

Or forced to suffer.

I was sometimes brought with others. And once more, I tried to reach out to someone else. She was older than me. She had a look in her eyes that told me that her soul was not emptied out.

We found each other, briefly. She told me about an outside world—yes, a world outside the place, a wonderful world where we would have to serve no one—and I felt a burning desire growing inside of me.

Then he found us, like he always did.

After watching him with her, my reaching arms were broken, just like he wanted.

But the burn never left.

-.-.-

"Beautiful face. . . ," he once said, stroking my cheek. Every fiber of my being trembled in disgust.

Then it came to me, slowly flooding my brain—a horrible, beautiful plan. One that could rid me of him forever.

There were rooms for torture, for punishment. I had been there before. We all had. We all had somehow asked for it, with whatever light was left burning in us.

And I was going to send myself there.

-.-.-

Once he tossed me in, I didn't care anymore. I was inflamed with the brilliance of my plan. His threats and promises bounced off of me.

Now I was going to destroy the one thing he had ever cared for about me, his very reason to notice my existence, and my utter defiance was so gratifying, nothing could harm me.

The acid I remember being a threat to the insides of one's throat was now my own personal weapon, and I welcomed it, the pain my price for freedom. The sweet scalding agony, my own cruel genius.

When he got rid of me, not even my injuries could compare to the elation I felt.

Oh, I was such a clever girl. I had finally won. I had triumphed over him once and for all. It would be easy from then on. It was all over.

I couldn't be more wrong.


	2. Eri

**_Salvation_**

chapter 2: Eri

* * *

My first taste of the outside was more fantastic than I had ever imagined in my dank prison cell. I saw the sky for the first time, and I was frightened by the trees, not knowing what they were. The outdoors was a weird and wonderful world, and it both captivated and confused me.

After the initial amazement of the outside world wore off, I came to realize that I had no idea where I was, where I was going, or what to do. I had no idea how to interact with people or what I could eat. I had no clue where I could stay. When nearly a whole day of wandering had gone by, I was worried.

My skin festered and stung, every movement I made a painful endeavor. I could barely move my right arm, the muscles had been so deeply simmered, and I could not hear anything through my right ear. I forced myself to remain strong. I could not die now that my true life had only just begun.

I was not as scared as I think a more normal injured girl might have been in my situation—my life had been a struggle from day one, and I was used to being alone and not knowing when my next meal might be. I was determined to carve a life for myself somehow, in some way, and I would simply have to learn.

I couldn't give up.

On my first night in the free world, I found a hole in the ground and collapsed in it, feeling oddly safe surrounded by the earth.

-.-.-

When I opened my eyes to the light of the morning, standing above my hole was a young girl. When she saw me looking at her she gasped and ran off.

"Wait!" I cried after her, scrambling out of my hole.

She stopped and looked at me, furrowing her eyebrows. "Why are you sleeping out here?" she asked. "What's wrong with your face?"

"Because I don't got a home," I told her.

"Sorry," she said.

"And I burned myself."

"That's dumb," she stated matter-of-factly, putting her hands on her hips. "Why'd you do that?"

I glared at her. "What do you know? I did it to escape. I was a slave."

"A slave?" the girl repeated incredulously. "Are you on the run? A fugitig?"

"No," I said, unsure what was fugitig was. "They kicked me out 'cause of the burns," I told her proudly.

She didn't seem to understand the great thing I had accomplished, and instead seemed disappointed at this news. "Whatever. Wanna play?"

I blinked. "What?"

"Oh, I guess slaves don't play. I'll teach you to play, slavey-girl!" she declared.

"Don't call me that," I reprimanded her.

"Well, what's your name?"

I was silent.

"You don't got a name?"

I shook my head.

"I'll name you!" She stared at me for a minute, then laughed. "You look like a zombie all dirty and burnt up like that! I got it. I'll call you Mukuro!"

"That's not funny!" I screamed at her.

"But I like it! Mukuro! Mukuro!"

She continued to taunt me until I growled and chased her, and we were both running through the forest until we forgot what I was even chasing her for, and Mukuro became a name I wasn't angry about.

-.-.-

I learned that the girl's name was Eri while she taught me how to play. She taught me to play Scream, where one person hid while the other person had to try to find them without being surprised when the hidden one tries to scare them. If you make a noise then you lose. I always won.

Eri got tired of losing so she tried to teach me how to clap hands, except I could barely move my right arm, so she just taught me the rhymes and clapped her hands on my knees to pretend we were doing it.

"Raizen, Raizen, he's the king / But he's big and really mean / Mommy says to stay away / But I'll be Raizen's queen one day!" she sang.

"Who's Raizen?" I asked.

Her eyes grew huge. "You don't know who _Raizen_ is?" I shook my head. "Raizen is the king of everything! He's the biggest baddest strongest demon ever!"

"You mean he's in charge of everyone?"

"Yup," she answered.

I immediately decided that I did not like him.

-.-.-

While Eri was teaching me what the trees and creatures were, my burns began to sting even more and my stomach growled. I was hungry and thirsty and my wounds probably needed to be taken care of. Eri eventually saw the pain on my face, and she asked me delicately, "Does it hurt?"

"Yeah," I told her. "It hurts a lot." It did hurt a lot in the places I could feel the burn. I suppose my nerves had been killed in the places where it did not.

"You don't look like it hurts a lot," she said. "You look like it hurts a little."

"I'm used to hurting," I explained. "But it does hurt a lot. And I haven't eaten in two days either."

Eri sucked on her hair, a habit she had when she was thinking too hard. "Can you hunt stuff?"

"What do you mean?"

"Oh yeah, you never even seen animals before. I guess you can't. My daddy hunts stuff, and he's teaching me, too. Like fish."

"What's fish?"

"Squirmy things that live in rivers. Water," she clarified. "They have big eyes like this." She circled her eyes with her fingers. "And their lips are like this." She puckered her mouth and moved her lips open, closed, open, closed.

If I had been a child that was shown love, I might have laughed at her face, but when I did not, she gave up and sucked on her hair again. "I might could teach you. But I need to get a net. Okay?"

I nodded and she ran off, leaving me in the forest to wait.

-.-.-

It took longer to catch fish than I had hoped for, and when Eri and I made a fire and stuck the fish on twigs and roasted them, I was drooling with anticipation.

The crudely barbecued fish was more delicious than anything I had ever eaten before, and Eri barely had any to eat as I plowed through fish after fish until they were gone.

"Wow! Guess you really were hungry," she commented. I simply nodded and chewed.

We laid back in the grass at the shore of the river and talked as the fire died down, and after a while, Eri told me she had to go home.

"My daddy got in a big fight yesterday so he spends all day sleeping after that, that's why I got to play all day today. But I can't do this every day. Only sometimes. But I can come find you, right? I'll come see you all the time."

"Yeah," I agreed.

I hated seeing her leave, but suddenly the thought occurred to me that for the first time in my life, I was not alone.

-.-.-

When I woke up, I washed in the river. The cool water soothed my burns, but froze the rest of me, and half of me wanted to get out while the other wanted to stay. I thought it was funny, having two different halves of myself. I liked the scarred one better, because it was smarter, and nobody would think it was pretty. The only way it could be any better is if it hadn't taken my arm and my hearing and it didn't hurt all the time. I appreciated my other side for those things. It was almost as if I could go through life with the best of both worlds.

I spent hours trying to grab fish with my only hand, because Eri had to take her net home with her. It was a failure after a failure. Most of the time the fish didn't even come near me.

After the seventh escaped fish, I had become so frustrated that I screamed and hit the water, and it only splashed me arrogantly back in my face. That only made me angrier, and I continued to hit the water, when suddenly I caught a glimpse of a strange red light and the water seemed to explode.

I stood in shock as droplets of river water rained around me, and I stared at my hand. I could have sworn that the light had come from _me_, but it wasn't there anymore. I didn't understand.

The flopping of a fish on shore caught my attention, and reminded of how hungry I was, I forgot about the light while I scrambled to eat.

-.-.-

I didn't see Eri until the next day. By then I had moved on from fish and was scouting the forest, wondering if I would have better luck with a woodland creature, not that I had any idea of the proper way to eat such a meal at the time. I had just set my eyes on a squirrel when I heard her shout my name through the trees.

I raced after the sound of her voice, and her expression at my disheveled appearance was none too pleased. "What're you _doing_?"

"Trying to get food," I said, glaring at her.

Eri laughed.

"Stop doing that," I snapped. "I hate that."

She instantly stopped, looking hurt. "Why? That's not fair. Why can't I laugh?"

I didn't like when anyone laughed or smiled.

"Don't you laugh?" I shook my head and continued to glare at her for asking what seemed to me to be such a stupid question. "Why not?"

"Because I don't hurt people like that," I growled.

She looked at me as if I had just said the dumbest thing in the world. "What are you talking about? People don't laugh when they hurt people! It's what you do when you're happy! When you like something!" Eri stuck her fingers at the corners of my mouth and forced me to smile, and I batted her hands away.

"You like me, right?" she asked. I nodded after a moment. "Then you should smile 'cause you like me! 'Cause we have fun!"

I wasn't sure if I should believe her, but I thought I understood what she was saying. I thought maybe I could try to smile and laugh if it made her happy.

-.-.-

Because I hadn't learned how to hunt yet, Eri showed me there were fruits I could eat, and we climbed up in trees, reaching up for apples and pears and dropping them to the ground after we plucked them from their limbs.

Eri climbed past me to reach a particularly healthy-looking pear when I saw the bruise on her arm, and I snatched her wrist to inspect it.

"Let go!" she snapped.

"What happened?"

She wrenched her arm free of my grasp and jerked the pear off the twig.

"Tell me," I pressed.

She avoided my gaze as she dropped the pear and said, "My dad. He gets angry. Sometimes it just happens."

My chest tightened. "He hurts you?" I asked, a little more harshly than I intended.

Eri climbed down from the tree. "Just drop it, okay?"

She didn't understand how I could not bear to.

My chest ached for days, and when Eri got angry with me for not laughing and smiling, I found it was even harder to fake it. The feeling was not behind it anymore. I could not share her joy knowing that she had pain that might have been in any way like mine. She was the first good thing that had happened to me.

I could not let her suffer.

-.-.-

I eventually became better at hunting, and found that I was becoming faster and stronger. When I caught my first prey, a rabbit, I didn't know what to do with it, and it squeaked and kicked in my grasp while I held it at the base of its head. While I had felt incredible and powerful the moment I first caught it, something ached in the pit of my stomach now while I watched the rabbit screaming for its life, knowing that I was going to kill it and it was going to die, and something about that was terrible for me.

I had to face the fact that it was always going to be the decision of my own life or the life of the things I killed, and when I stepped on it to hold it in place and split open its throat with a sharp rock, I knew I had made it.

-.-.-

One night after fishing with Eri, I followed her home. I had developed my skill at hunting to the point where she didn't notice my presence as I moved among the trees, and as she entered her home, I scrambled into the nearest tree and looked out at the village she lived in.

It was mostly quiet, but there were a couple demons shuffling in the paths. I had just begun to observe someone as they brought clothes inside their house when I heard the clatter inside Eri's house.

My pulse quickened and I focused my attention on the sounds from within, and I managed to hear a large voice filled with rage, then a tiny voice spewing apologies.

Another clatter. A cry.

It must have been a split second that I dropped from the tree and raced to Eri's door. Another second that I met bewildered eyes. Another second that light flashed in front of my eyes and the blood was on my hands.

I had never seen this man before, and he was dead at my feet.

Some part of me that must have known what had happened thought that this would be okay, and that I had done a good thing.

I was brought back to reality when I heard the scream.


	3. Shun

**_Salvation_**

chapter 3: Shun

_I entreat you to listen to the song Passive Sorrow while you read this chapter_—_it fits very well. It will be the first result on Youtube.__  
_

* * *

I woke up to the scream echoing in my head, sweat pooling on my skin.

_I hate you! _my waking mind screeched at me, finishing where my dream had left off.

Yes, that was what she had said.

That was why I ran.

It had been three days since I had killed Eri's father. The thick, metallic odor of the blood still clung to my hands, and I tried to wash it away, but it seemed to stick there no matter what.

I had killed a man, and that was a truth I could not run from, no matter how far away his dead body was from me.

Without Eri, I had nothing but that truth to define me.

-.-.-

I ran without direction, each day meeting a new wild expanse, each day finding new creatures to eat, and each day finding more blood on my hands.

I had been lonely for so long that I did not truly know what it was until I was taken out of it and then thrust so violently back in again. Finding relief from that loneliness appealed to me, but I never ventured near any people that I saw. I was afraid to trust them, and afraid to trust myself. Being at a distance felt safe to me, and I often resigned to spend my days spying on townsfolk, observing their interactions with curiosity and envy.

I should have predicted that it would not be long before someone found me.

I was sleeping when I heard a rustle in the brush that quickly roused me, but I had no time to flee before I was met with the image of two men, staring blankly at me, precariously eying the burned half of my body.

I scrambled to my feet and bolted.

They yelled after me, and by the sound of shifting leaves behind me I could tell they were following. When I tripped I was sure that all luck had failed me.

I glanced back and saw now that one of them was almost over me, and, my limp arm failing to drag me to my feet, I shielded myself.

I thought it must have been my own scream that I heard then, but with the sudden silence, a coldness in my blood told me that it was not.

Maybe it was Eri's scream, the scream that informed me of the horrible things that I had done.

When I stood and saw the two dead bodies and the spray of blood, I did not stop to consider.

-.-.-

As I ran, I tried to convince myself that those men were going to hurt me, but the truth was that I did not know. I wanted to believe that I had only killed bad people, and they deserved it. I was not a monster, even though I had no idea how I had done what I had done.

I couldn't be.

I didn't want to be.

But if not that, then what was I?

I ran for what seemed like ages until my body had no choice but to slow, and then I walked for even longer. I swayed at the crest of a hill when my legs gave out, and I found myself falling, tumbling as gravity rolled me over and over, bashing me into the ground as it had unforgivingly done to countless things before.

When I finally stopped, I didn't realize it for several minutes—my world was still turning, and darkness was closing in around me. I was so tired of falling, so tired of caring, that I could do nothing but let it swallow me.

-.-.-

The first thing I became aware of was the dryness of my mouth and the familiar ache of the right side of my body. My body shifted, and the softness of whatever was underneath me startled me to full consciousness.

When I cracked my eye open, I did not see the open sky, but a familiar ceiling. This realization sent a shock through me, and I sat up, my breath coming in fearful gasps.

"It's all right!" I heard a man's voice say, and my head whipped around, searching for the source, when I caught sight of a short man sitting some yards away in a chair near the cot I had been resting in. Brown hair framed his face in a short beard, and his crinkled, powder blue eyes met mine with what may have been concern. Whatever the look was was not anger, and it stilled me for a moment as he said, "Don't worry. You're not in any trouble. You're in my home. I found you outside."

I stared at him. "Why?"

He blinked back at me. "You know that you've been badly hurt, don't you? I wanted to help you."

I continued to stare, not sure if to believe or even _how_ to believe such an absurd, otherworldly statement.

"Are you hungry?" he asked me.

I nodded. "Where's some water?" I inquired, intending to get it myself, along with anything else I needed. I could not comprehend that he was making offers to me until he set a plate of food and glass of water on the table next to my cot.

I cast him a questioning look, and he nodded. "Go ahead."

While I used my working arm to shove food into my mouth, he talked to me. He told me that his name was Shun, and he was a mechanic, which apparently made stuff. I had no idea what he meant, but as I looked around, I figured he must have been talking about the heaps of weird, shiny things that littered the big room we were in.

"You can't move that other arm, can you?" Shun asked, and I shook my head as I chewed, slurping some water.

"I might be able to give you another one," he said then, and I looked up from the plate. "What?"

"It wouldn't be the same as the one you had before," he explained. "It would be metal. But you could use it. Want to see?"

I nodded, curiosity getting the better of me, and he walked to another part of the room before bringing back what looked to me to be a shiny, silver, oddly-decorated arm.

It was glorious.

"This design's my pride and joy. Of course I'd have to give you a smaller one, since this is an adult arm, but that shouldn't take. . . ." he stopped, staring at my expression. "What is it?"

A sudden thought had occurred to me, and I asked darkly, "What do you want?"

He stared blankly for a moment before my words sunk in, and then he looked appalled. "Oh, no, I don't want anything from you for it. See I've never done the operation on anyone's arm . . . ," at the word "operation," I recoiled visibly, and he continued more softly, "and I want to give it to someone who needs it."

I wasn't sure whether to trust him, but his kindness thus far stopped me from leaving, and I did truly want the arm. So I asked, "How long will it take?"

"Hmm," Shun considered, rubbing his chin. "Probably a couple weeks, what with the fine details. But, it might go faster if I had some help." He looked at me. "What do you think? Want to help?"

I blinked at him. "I don't know how to do anything but hunt."

"That's fine, you don't have to know anything special. Most of the time I just need something brought to me." He smiled. "I'll bet you're very impressive at hunting. I'm not even good at it with two arms."

I frowned, then looked all around the room at the metal wonders, and with all these incredible things, I couldn't imagine him being bad at anything. So I said the most eloquent word that Eri had taught me.

"Whatever."

-.-.-

Every day I wandered through the woods outside Shun's house. If I caught something, I'd come running back, fling the door open, and stomp down the steps to the basement where he was working on my arm to show off my catch.

"Looks good," he'd say, then wash the grease from his hands so he could cook it for us.

I did not sleep in the bed again since the day he had found me, but I did often sit in it while we ate. One day over deer, while I sat on the bed and he on his chair, he asked me, "So what happened to you?"

I glared at him.

He put his hands up. "You don't have to tell me."

I shifted uncomfortably on the thin mattress. Even if I wanted to, what could I tell him? Everything behind me was monstrous, and I did not want him to know such things about me.

After a long silence, over the course of which I was sure he had forgotten about his question entirely, I said, "I was a slave."

Instead of asking me what I was talking about, he nodded slowly. Then he asked, "Do you have a name?"

I thought about this. Did Eri's name for me really suit me? Deep down I thought so, but again, I did not want to tell Shun such things. So I said, "I haven't decided yet."

He laughed, and I glared at him again, because I didn't understand. I was being very serious, and so I didn't know what he thought was so funny about it. "When you do decide," he said, "just let me know, then."

-.-.-

So many days passed between Shun and I that I could not keep track of them. I felt so safe and strange that hours began to melt into each other and the simplicity of my new lifestyle confounded me. I expected something horrible to happen each day in the back of my mind, but I eventually came to realize that nothing bad was happening at all, and that knowledge made me all at once confused, uncertain, and ecstatic over each new day.

I felt strangely as if I had become part of the world that I had been kept from for so long, that I had jealously watched from my tree perches, and I had no idea how it had happened.

I had never met anyone like Shun, and so I was uncertain of him. I spent many hours wondering when, if, and how he would turn against me. He could not really be like this, I told myself. He must be doing this for his own purposes.

Yet every time I fell deeply into my suspicions, he would surprise me with his selflessness, and I would be shoved back to square one, proven wrong yet again.

For the first time in my life, I thought I might have happiness, and some slim part of me hoped vainly that there was a chance that that happiness might never end.

-.-.-

When the day finally came, I had been biding my time outside running through the woods until my cheeks were red and the sting of the cool air burned my throat with each gasp. It was getting colder, and I had just decided to walk down to the basement and ask Shun about it when he cheerily informed me, "It's completed!"

I was caught between my thought and his, and my mouth flopped open, attempting to articulate a coherent response. "What? It is?"

"It is," he affirmed with a smile. "Come look."

I nearly tripped over my own feet in my excitement as I raced to his worktable, and when I set eyes on the glimmering prosthetic limb, I was filled with the strangest feeling that no delight before, aside from my escape from slavery, had ever come close to.

"Now," Shun said, so gravely that it called my attention, "before I attach it to you, you have to understand the procedure. It will be painful." I blinked, letting his words sink in. "Very painful. But I wouldn't suggest it if I didn't think you could handle it." His gaze turned to my burned half, and I nodded seriously.

"I want it."

His lips tightened. "Tomorrow, then. I—"

"Why tomorrow?" I interrupted.

"We'll both need plenty of rest to prepare for it. You'll need your strength. It could take hours."

Hours of pain, I thought. But I could deal with the pain in order to use my arm again. I had already endured the pain of flesh-searing chemical burns, the slow pain of losing sight in my eye, the pain of whips and knives and chains and rape. My utter lack of self.

This pain would be a minuscule addition to my collection of pains.

-.-.-

When the blade touched the first living nerve, I screamed.

It was a brief scream, and I swallowed it. Shun hesitated for only a moment, and after that, no matter what sounds I made, he did not stop.

We had to get rid of my useless arm in order to replace it. This I understood completely. I understood that it would be painful.

I did not understand how the sharp agony would dizzy me, as I lay on my side to keep the blood flow away from my shoulder. _Shun won't let me die, _I thought, and I clung to it. _Shun won't let me die. Shun won't let me die. _

It occurred to me that I had no idea how the mechanical arm worked, but I had not asked before, and I could not concentrate on forming words while I battled with my stomach and my nerves and the screams that I choked into whimpers.

I had to ride it out as I had rode out all the pains before now. It would end eventually. I had to look forward. I had to concentrate on what I was gaining. The pain was a stepping stone.

_It'll be over soon. Shun won't let me die. _

-.-.-

The next thing I remembered was the softness underneath me again. My hair was matted with sweat and tangled, and my skin clung to everything around me.

My shoulder ached, and I was not sure why. When at last I breached consciousness, I almost cried out at what I saw.

My arm was gone, and in its place, gleaming metal.

I was hit with the sudden overbearing feeling of loss for reasons I cannot explain. My arm was gone forever. I had wanted this, but now that it had finally come about, I was scared.

But that arm was useless, I reminded myself. It was already gone.

"How do you feel?" I heard a soft male voice ask me.

I was expecting something different. Something about the arm, maybe, or about how I should get off the bed. But this was Shun.

Of course, he wanted to know if I was okay.

I started crying.

I don't know if it was because I was drowsy, hurting, happy, sad, confused, or all of those things, but I felt as if a storm cloud of tears had just burst inside of me and I couldn't stop the downpour. Before I knew it, I was sobbing, and Shun crouched down beside me.

"I should have known. I should have known. It was too much for you. I'm so sorry, I'm so stupid," he was saying, but I shook my head, unable to stop wailing, unable to tell him what I was feeling.

-.-.-

Shun explained to me how the arm would work—it fed on my energy. As long as I still had some, the arm would function as normal and be able to move as I wished. This system also served as a rudimentary 'sense,' where I was able to feel what the arm felt because of the energy it employed.

Shun then had to explain to me what my energy was, exactly.

"All apparitions have energy that they can utilize in different ways," he told me. "I use my energy to create machines that can work on the energy of others, such as your arm. You're young, so you may not have had much practice with your energy yet."

_My energy_, I thought. My energy must have been what had killed Eri's father, the two men in the forest. What I saw flashing before my eyes in bright streaks of red. A destructive force.

My energy was nothing like Shun's.

-.-.-

I stayed with Shun even after my arm was completed, and neither of us ever questioned it. Sometimes I helped him fetch things for new experiments he worked on, and I began to learn the forest and wilderness as he knew it, every plant and animal by name. He even began to teach me to read.

I was an excellent hunter. With two functioning arms, rarely anything got away from me. My remorse at killing the animals slipped away, my happiness at all other things far outweighing it.

Eventually, I also became adjusted to Shun's smiles. For all the goodness he was, his smile could be nothing but genuine goodness in and of itself. It made me want to return it, all of the potential light and love he projected, though I knew I could not. Still, I tried.

I tried to smile again.

-.-.-

One day, Shun and I were not alone. I was down in the basement, helping Shun rearrange parts when we heard the blip that announced when someone was standing at the door—Shun's energy detectors were truly astounding for their time—and a rapping followed it. Something foreign crossed Shun's face then, and he told me to stay.

I did not.

I stood on the steps and stuck my head just above the floor, watching as Shun opened the door. I first saw only one man, and then I noticed that a taller one stood behind him.

"You've got it ready now, haven't you?" the shorter man said.

Shun was silent for a moment, then he said, "I need more time. The construction isn't completed just yet."

"Look, old man, this is important," the short man growled. "I've got money invested in you, money that's going to waste the more you sit around with your thumb up your ass. In case you hadn't noticed, there ain't a whole lot of that to go around these days."

Shun's head bobbed. "I understand, I understand. I'll work as fast as I can. Just give me another week."

"A week better be all it is, or else you'll find yourself in a very _compromised_ situation, Shun." The two men grinned sickly and walked away, and Shun shut the door, resting against it with a soft sigh.

I padded up the stairs slowly. "I got you in trouble with them, didn't I, Shun?"

He turned around, surprised. "No, no. Nothing of the sort. Let's go back down and keep working, eh?" He smiled at me and approached the stairs, but my gaze was transfixed on the door.

Deep inside, in my very marrow, I could feel the evil that came from those men. They were going to try to hurt my happiness.

-.-.-

I was outside when the men came back a week later. I had been outside often, almost waiting for them, my mind slowly warping with some inane curiosity and hatred. I wanted to truly see them, but not be seen. I wanted to know where they came from and who they were, and why they were so stressful to Shun.

He tried to hide it from me, but I could see it in his face, his posture. All was not well. Perhaps it had never been well, and their weight had always been on him, but I had simply not seen it.

The thought of that made me hate them even more.

They came from the north, the shorter man with his pasty green skin leading the taller man who was covered in hair. They were ugly demons, which I decided reflected their ugly insides. I hid behind a tree as I watched them beat on Shun's door.

The door cracked open and I saw the painful expression on Shun's face. Both my fists clenched.

"That look tells me the device isn't ready," the short man began.

Shun's brows furrowed. "I just need a couple more days, a week at most—"

"We gave you a week. A week ago. You're gonna have to pay up one way or another."

I saw the fear in Shun's eyes as the taller man stepped forward, raising his arm. Something inside of me shattered, and before I knew it, my vision was fractured with red.

I had closed the distance in what must have been a split second and thrust my metal hand into the taller man's rib cage. My other hand pointed at the shorter man, found his throat, crushed him.

Coated in blood, my chest heaving, I stood over my work.

Then I lifted my gaze.

I wished I had not. The look I saw on Shun's face was what made my heart freeze and flashed memories of Eri, the shock in her eyes, the underlying despair. That look was what made me run. I could not bear to hear him say what she had said to me. I could not bear the reality of losing him for what I had become.

I knew what I was beyond a shadow of a doubt in that moment. A murderer.

That was the first time I truly enjoyed killing someone, and it was only the beginning of the destitute road that lay ahead of me.

* * *

**Author's Note:** This chapter is going to be the last relatively happy one for a while . . . that's just the way it goes, unfortunately. But yes, as you can see, Shun is the mechanic that gives Mukuro her arm, and clearly a relatively important person in her past. Thanks for reading!


	4. Raizen

**_Salvation_**

chapter 4: Raizen

* * *

For the third time in my life, I wandered aimlessly, but this time I left much more behind me.

My illusion of happiness was broken again, and that had become as painfully clear to me as the searing chill that came with the winter.

I let the cold envelop my heart, but it could only do so much to comfort me.

After many nights on my own, I suddenly became filled with a familiar anxiety. For the first time since I had escaped, I found myself truly reflecting on my life in slavery.

I could hear Chikou's voice in my head, and often awoke from terrible dreams of him. His voice echoing, _"Happy birthday."_

It had been like that every year for me. I felt that terrible day approaching, and it swallowed my heart in despair. Now, even though I was free, I could still feel it, and I cursed myself for it. I could not even be free to hate him, free to imagine his blood spraying—

_sunshine_

_flowers_

_garland_

_happiness._

My birthday would again be a terrible one, although I wished so desperately that I could change it. If those men had not come, I could have been happy on this day. I could have been with Shun, and he would wash away all the terrible darkness that came with these memories like a gentle rain.

What I had instead was frost, and it bit my tender heart until my dreams had been frozen and splintered away.

-.-.-

At first, I killed out of necessity. I killed men and stole their clothing to keep myself warm. I killed a house full of people and sheltered myself, ate their food.

It was with a dead man's sword that I cut away all of my hair, and I, for all anyone knew, became a boy.

Eventually, I began to kill anyone who seemed vaguely threatening. Anyone who approached me with any seemingly negative intentions was destroyed. Those who got too close to my blind side were decimated. I did not care. I eventually blocked out all the screams, the blood. I incorporated them into myself—I even turned it into a game, to see how many people I could frighten, in order to keep myself from going insane with the reality of it.

I was good at killing. I became very good at it. Killing was what I was. And deep down, I felt I enjoyed it.

There was a sort of freedom that came with taking someone's life. The power that coursed through me as I severed flesh and bone. Pure exhilaration. As if I was focusing all of my pain into a single point and releasing it into their body, breaking the chains of grief that bound me.

It was only when I saw the remains of the deed that the truth of my actions came rushing back to me, but I was left with nothing but a bigger hole inside of myself, a yawning emptiness that I continuously thirsted to fill with more and more blood. I was an addict, racing to the next high, broken by the fall, but always craving it.

-.-.-

When I was nine years old, I began to gain followers.

There were people that admired me, even celebrated me, and I did not know how to feel about them. I had done nothing good with my life, nothing noteworthy. I was turned away and despised or adored.

I hated them all for not being able to understand. But I hated those who liked me considerably less.

I even began to tolerate them.

I was famous because I was powerful, and because I was a child. I never told them my name, and many were too afraid to even ask. To some I became "Aka," 'red,' maybe for the blood I spilled or the color of my murder. Others called me "the scarred child." There were likely countless other names that had been given to me, but I was not ready to be known by any of them.

Those years went by as a blur of blood for me.

-.-.-

When I was ten I knew I needed to replace my arm. I had, for the most part, accepted what I was, but I was not ready to consider my past again. My past with Shun.

I had arrived at the conclusion that I was angry with him. Deep inside I knew he had not abandoned me, and I had actually abandoned him, but I did not allow myself to believe it. He would have hurt me in the end, just as his look implied he would. I could not believe otherwise. To do so would be too painful, and make my past years of existence—of death—meaningless.

I ultimately decided that I had no choice. I had to face him. A part of me even wanted to face him again, to prove to myself that I had been right in leaving him. Yet there was a part of me that was deeply terrified of being proven wrong.

In the end, when I finally burst through his door and walked down his steps, I did not know what I was going to say to him.

Then I said, "I'm a killer. This is who I am. I've got money for you now. So give me the arm or don't."

I couldn't threaten him. I couldn't even meet his gaze. I thought if I saw those eyes, expecting to be looked down on, I might kill him, but I suppose in truth what I felt was a deep, burning shame. But at that time, the darkness inside of me smothered it all into an incomprehensible mess, and I had no idea what I was feeling anymore.

Shun agreed, but we did not speak. He must have felt the barrier I had put around myself, blocking everything out around me, and knew his attempts would have been useless. I would have twisted them on him.

No matter if he spoke or did not, I would still be full of hatred.

When at last he had finished my arm and attached it to me, I paused one last time before I left him for another several years.

I told him, "My name is Mukuro." And that was all.

-.-.-

It was a year later that I began to hide myself. The idea was not new to me, as I had often considered the best method of doing so, but it was when I met a woman who explained the ofuda wards to me that I knew it was time.

They would keep the bandages on me, and the wards' purpose was to keep whatever was beneath it safe, hidden, or restrained. No one's prying eyes could see my true face, gifted or not.

I covered everything but my sighted left eye until I was fifteen, when I went to visit Shun for another arm replacement.

He had made a prosthetic eye for me to take the place of my lost, blinded right eye. Again I would have to part with a useless piece of my body in order to use it. But I did not care this time.

I only saw his face a bare moment as he ripped out my eye, and that was that.

-.-.-

In the years to come, my advocates amassed. It seemed that I was not well-known enough anywhere but in the small part of the world I occupied to pose a considerable threat to Raizen's current domination. I embraced my anonymity, for I wished not to draw attention, but the more I sought it, the more attention I inevitably drew.

Eventually even killing could not bring me the peace I had been struggling for, and that made me even angrier.

I still did not feel safe. Secure.

I needed more.

-.-.-

I would not have to hurt them as long as they did what I said. As long as they respected me. As long as they never threatened me.

But not everyone could understand that. Not everyone, such as the woman in the village with a wild look in her eyes, that woman who I decimated, whose son's cries I ignored.

I did not ask for much.

-.-.-

When I was twenty, and I had accumulated five times as many followers, I grew less reckless. I slowly became more immersed in the world I had stumbled into, the power I had gained, and thus I learned more about what power was supposed to mean, though it did not change much about me other than my knowledge of the workings of the world and the people in it. My wishes remained the same.

But I had become a true influence in my part of the world.

As a ruler I was not concerned over being good for others. The world could remain in the state it was in for all I cared, as long as my corner of it was fit for myself. Many of my territory's conquests were not even my idea. Still, because I was powerful, I would always have those that stood behind me. Most of the time I realized that I was the catalyst they used to further their own goals, but some of them were loyal to me, although I had a hard time ever spotting the difference.

In a very deformed way, and due in no small part to the violence I was surrounded by from day to day, I felt that my bloody world was justified. My own self-serving intentions wrapped me up in a darkness that, because so many people supported it, I felt must be right. If I was a monster, then so was everyone else. I was simply the one on top.

At some point, I became obsessed with what I was more than what I truly wanted.

It was at this time that Raizen finally found me.

-.-.-

Raizen was incredibly fast.

He found me when I was alone. The both of us, alone. Something about being alone with this man—the most powerful man in the world—both awed and angered me.

And he did truly overpower me.

But he did not kill me then. He stood over me, and I realized that he could now do whatever he wished with me.

My fear brought all my remaining power to the surface, and I shot it at him, but he dodged it almost effortlessly. I was helpless now, resigned to whatever fate he chose to administer upon me. I knew it was all over for me.

I was too weak to even tremble as he reached down and stripped the bandages off of my face. His eyes widened just barely, then he stood back up and said, "I like you, Mukuro. You're not like the others. No big ideas, no lofty plans, just pure unbridled power. You don't even bother with the human world. I'd rather it be you than one of them. So don't get yourself killed." He stared a moment longer, then he walked away from me.

I had no idea what he meant, but he had let me live. He, knowing I was a woman, had not even touched me. I was too confused by him to even properly hate him the way I wanted to. I might even have loved him for it, if my confusion at it all did not make me so angry. I was angry that he had proven he was better than me, and angry that I did not understand why. He had not killed me, and he had not taken me in—he had left me with the most infuriating path of all: my own thoughts.

I vowed to myself that I would live on, to make him regret that he had not finished me off.

-.-.-

Raizen and I continued through the years with what was, to us, as close as we could get to friendly competition. Our followers were oblivious to our respect for each other, and I knew they would have no possible understanding of it, so to everyone's eyes, Raizen was as much of the enemy that I claimed he was, that I tried to believe he was.

I felt that opposing Raizen gave me some sort of purpose after all. If it were not for that and my inability to form bonds with others, I most likely would have been close to him instead of against him.

At times we met each other and conversed in secret. I did not feel the need to lash out against him and because of that, he held me in the same regard.

All of that ended when he fell so foolishly in love with the human woman, and he came back changed.

I did not know him anymore, and that threatened me. I could not relate to the monster that he no longer was. It was not his swearing off of humans that bothered me. Truthfully, it had not been my original choice to eat humans. I ate mainly meat, as most of us did. Then, frankly, most of them ate humans as well, and it happened that I followed suit. I did not mind it, as I did not mind most dead things anymore, and also because I had never known any humans, and I did not wish to. They were either more unnecessary threats or pointless distractions.

No, the truth was that the reasoning behind his actions, such emotion, such compassion and faithfulness, was nothing to me. I could not understand or agree with something so ridiculously futile, and it was not something that the Raizen I had known would do.

He was no longer like me, and that meant that once again, I was utterly alone.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Once upon a time, Mukuro and Raizen had a rad bromance. ... Yeah. Anyway. I realize this chapter is shorter than the others. It just happened that way. This chapter is dedicated to, um... Raizen lovers? I have no idea. The plot thickens! I know this chapter probably seemed a bit choppy from all the time skips, but to be honest with you, I don't want to write a super detailed account of 1000+ years of life (for now), which is why I'm basing all the chapters on influential figures in Mukuro's life instead. So the time skips are going to be rampant unfortunately. Thanks for the read!


	5. Ayano

**_Salvation_**

Chapter 5: Ayano

* * *

My first right hand was a spider demon named Nataku. He was an intelligent and ambitious man, which was what drove him to my side, but because of that he was not caring or loyal. I did not mind. The two of us used each other to further our goals, and his lack of interest in me was comforting. He was more concerned with power. Women.

It was because of him that I met Ayano.

Nataku was sometimes difficult to find, but I often would resort to checking his room, and he usually did not care. It would not have mattered if he did, anyway.

That morning he was not there, but Ayano was.

She lay sprawled over his bed, her rich, dark hair tumbling over her unclothed skin, curling against her cheeks and bowing innocently over what would have been her bare chest.

My breath hitched in my throat as a peculiar wave of yearning washed over me. Something about her looked so warm, inviting, perhaps even familiar, but why? I could later only imagine that such feelings were brought on by the woman who had held me in my time of slavery before our relationship had been so abruptly quashed.

"Good morning, my lord," she mumbled sleepily to me, and she smiled.

I wanted to go near her, to touch her, and I had no idea why. It nearly terrified me, the startlingly unfamiliar and yet unbearably appealing notions that assaulted me.

"Did you want something?" she questioned, more clearly than before, further roused by her curiosity. I realized then that I had simply been staring at her, and I also realized that she had made no attempt to hide herself.

"No," I replied, more weakly than I would have liked, and walked out.

-.-.-

Ayano was not Nataku's woman officially. Nataku rarely made anything official unless he was completely sure about it, and women were unlikely to ever be such a thing.

It was because of this that Ayano was apt to search for other company, and, as I came to realize, mine in particular.

Ayano in her entirety was foreign to me. No one since slavery had ever shown such implicit desire to be near me, and certainly no one so soft and beautiful as she was. It was understood to everyone that I was dangerous, and the only beings that associated with me were my underlings.

This woman, however, would often invite me to sit with her when Nataku was away, and she would speak to me about my inferiors and her life. Before long, she was asking to join my company instead of the other way around. If I had followed my ingrained reactions then I would have immediately refused, but for whatever reason, imagining that my rejection would disappoint her stopped me from turning her away.

Eventually I came to spend more of my time in Ayano's presence than not. She never asked me about my past, and never showed too great of an interest about my personal life, but she would often gaze long and hard at my bandages, in a distant sort of way, as if trying to conjure what I could possibly look like underneath them.

I realized only later that this was the effect I had on women—the mystery of my bandages would allow anyone to imagine that I looked however they wanted, and that coupled with my power was part of my allure. But I did not yet understand such things.

I was just as captivated with her, if not more so.

-.-.-

After only a week of prolonged time with Ayano, everyone seemed to know what had transpired between us. Ayano basked in the attention and power that having my favor granted her, but I did not truly notice. Simply seeing her happy brought a very strange pleasure to me.

Once everyone knew, however, Ayano began to metamorphose. She became less of the gentle girl that I had seen draped in silken hair that first day and instead grew increasingly demanding. Things not fit to her specifications—food, clothing, bath water—she threw fits over to be immediately fixed.

She even became demanding of me.

"You rarely even touch me! Do you find me disgusting? Am I unworthy to you?"

"No," I tried to reply evenly. I sat next to her on my bed, and she looked at me with a mixture of sadness and anger.

"Kiss me," she said.

I stared at her for a long time, considering her request and everything that fulfilling it meant, and I was wracked with a terrible emotion that made freeze in place. But I couldn't tear my eye from hers, and at some point in time during that silence, I pulled some of my bandages away.

Ayano's eyes scoured the visible bits of flesh between my bandages, and she reached out her hand. I pulled away.

She scoffed at me. "I don't believe you. You convinced me you were different, but you don't even make an attem—"

"Stop," I commanded. I touched her hair, her shoulder—she smacked me away.

"No! You lied to me!" she screeched. "You're acting like just as much of a monster as they claim you are!"

Something boiling painfully inside of me burst to the surface in that moment, and I stood to my feet, balling my stinging hand. "You idiot. I didn't lie. You know well what I am. And you chose me anyway. _You_ were to blame for putting your trust in me in the first place!"

All I knew was that I could not bear it any longer. The pain, the deceit, losing all hope of anything good that I may have come to own.

I stepped out of my gut-smattered room, slicked in blood, past Nataku in the hall.

Echoing behind me, I heard him mutter, "People always look so different without their heads."


	6. Kirin

**_Salvation_**

Chapter 6: Kirin

* * *

Nataku lasted as my second in command for three hundred and sixty-seven years. That was the longest that any of my seconds ever lasted since.

He did not last for longer because his ambitiousness and smart mouth caught up with him.

I could feel the dreaded day coming, and I was on edge, doing my best to avoid everything and everyone. I could take my feelings of rage and helplessness out on others as I had often did in the past, but this year I was tired. I only wished to be alone, to try to salvage in my mind some way to get over the hurtle of pain. With whatever shreds of hope and will I had left, I tried.

It was as futile as squeezing one's eyes shut and willing a fatal wound away. Praying for salvation did not make it so. I only ever felt some amount of freedom in my violence.

On this birthday, Nataku reminded me of that.

"We didn't have to lose so many. If you had been out there, _with_ us, we'd have more soldiers to send to the battle at Chimera swamp!" he growled at me.

He knew not to speak to me like that. After all this time, he knew how uncontrollable I was. Nataku was always careful about when and how to approach me when he sensed my moods, as over time he had learned to do.

Either he had grown too comfortable or he was blinded by his own greed.

I stood from my seat, teetering precariously on my anguish and wrath, salvaging whatever shreds of decency could possibly be left within me for this man I had known so long.

But it was pointless. His face moved but maybe an inch—just enough that he was perhaps going to speak again—and I realized that I could take it no longer.

I could not have him near me anymore. I could not have his greed and anger bearing down on me, haunting me.

I _had_ to destroy him. I had no other choice.

-.-.-

When Yomi rose to power, I was on my twenty-first second in command.

Yomi himself was almost hilarious to me. Yet another rival spouting sugar-coated bullshit and reaching out with greedy hands just like everyone else. I didn't honestly expect him to last so long.

After a hundred years, when it became clear that he was not going anywhere, Yomi was no longer funny to me.

I wanted him dethroned, dead, ripped apart. I hated him more than I was sure I had hated anything in a long time. It was because Yomi was, in fact, the essence of everything I truly despised—a big fat lie wrapped in beautiful packaging.

Just more pain masquerading as pleasure.

I couldn't stand to see him parading around as if he knew the secret to life—all he was doing was smearing his love of stupidity in order to grasp at more power.

At this point, I believed I had the world figured out. It was only pain and more pain, pointlessness, life, death, eating and shitting and pissing and fighting with each other. Continuous chaos that some people tried to make seem like it was actually worth something—like it all had some deeper meaning. Like Yomi tried to play it off. But I laughed at them because I knew the truth. Because it was easier to laugh than to cry at how empty it all was.

I felt like I knew too much. That I knew the world and people and their infinite repeats, and the only times I felt remotely happy were the times that I made myself ignorant of how truly hopeless things were.

Every time I had grasped at happiness, it was ripped away from me. Eri, Shun, Raizen, Ayano. What was the point of continuing the struggle?

So when I made Kirin my twenty-second, he was hopeless to try to sway me.

-.-.-

I hated when he looked at me like that.

He looked at me so strangely, unlike what anyone had ever done before, and he always did it when we were talking alone.

He looked at me as if he was searching for something—something long dead and buried beneath too many layers of misery—but that damn glimmer in his eyes seemed to actually believe otherwise.

He could also tell that it angered me, and he began to lower his head when he spoke to me.

But then, once that look was gone, I felt bitter over it. I did not, _could_ not, admit it to myself, but I missed that look. I missed the thought that someone might have any faint hope in the terrible beast that I had become.

So when we spoke, I turned away from him, so then I would not know if he looked at me and maybe . . . he would no longer look away.

-.-.-

"They presented me with this, for you."

When he had come into the room, he seemed airier—more light-hearted—than I had ever seen him before.

He held it out to me as if he was proposing.

I wanted to turn away, but something in the beauty of the thing shimmering in his palm struck a chord in me that I had thought to be long ago exhausted.

It _was_ beautiful. And it was a thing, not a person. Perhaps it could be allowed to be beautiful, with no treachery behind it. Perhaps, maybe just perhaps, it could be mine, and I could have something truly lovely in a world forged in ugliness.

The moment I took it from his hand was the moment I realized how completely stupid that entire idea was, and I paused for only a moment to regard its flawless surface before I stuck the thing in my mouth and swallowed it, hoping maybe it _was_ treacherous and poisoned me and ended my suffering once and for all.

-.-.-

One day, I asked Kirin what he thought of me.

I can't be sure why I did. I could blame the tear gem for its opening my heart—I could blame my loneliness—I could blame my search for a purpose—I could blame simple boredom, even.

But the surprise in his eyes at my question, his reaction in its entirety, would always be a much better reason. Just to see him ponder me—him, someone who did not hate me.

"I respect you so much, my lor—"

"Why?"

He faltered a moment. "You _are_ powerful. But . . . more than that. You . . . are honest. More honest than anyone I have known."

I was honest. I did not hide my emotions, because my emotions had been the only things that got me here. I was honest because I was tired of lies penetrating my skin. I was honest because there was no point in trying to hide what I was.

Honesty. My only virtue.

But it was a virtue, and somehow, I possessed it. And somehow, he saw it in me.

-.-.-

There was a time in which I stopped lying completely to Kirin.

He was wrong in what he said to me. I wasn't fully honest. I hid myself from the world, fearing and hating their gaze upon me for what I was. It was easier for them to never know, and thus I lied to them.

This day I was tired of lying to myself and I began to remove my all-important wrappings, freeing my face of its constant cocoon.

It was then that he entered.

"I'm sorry my lord," he muttered so fast that I barely understood him, and he began to shut the door, but I stopped him.

"Kirin," I said. He paused at the door with, I expect, fear at what was to come. Then he entered, head bowed, avoiding looking at me at all costs. He said nothing.

"Kirin," I repeated. "Look at me."

He stopped moving—maybe even stopped breathing—for a long time.

"You're not in trouble. _Look_ at me. I want you to look at me."

When I said this, he finally raised his head, and I wasn't sure what I expected to find there. Of all things I could find, what I expected was disdain, confusion, anger, even disappointment. I expected that this revelation at what I was would change everything between us.

I did not expect him to gaze at me so intensely, as if he had actually discovered something good, something he was delighted to find—and, I suppose, at the knowledge that I shared it with him.

"Now you've seen me. Now I've been completely honest with you. What does it change?"

And he said, "As for my loyalties—nothing, my lord."

I thought about asking him what it did change, then, but I decided I would rather not know.

-.-.-

I began to speak to Kirin, which was really more than I had offered anyone in longer than I cared to remember. My thoughts and my past were parts of me that could not be taken from me, and could only be willingly shared, and so I shared them sparingly.

I did not believe I could find happiness from speaking with him. I did not want to look at him in such a way, because it was too painful to fathom. But speaking to him did give me some comfort, in a blindly selfish way, and as if he knew this, he rarely spoke himself. He simply listened to me, not saying a word in all my pauses as I thought of what next I should share.

Though he said nothing and did nothing, it relaxed me. His unchanging nature was a welcome constant, and it opened me up in a way that few things had ever done for me.

I spoke sometimes of my anger, and, eventually, of my pain. I did not tell him everything; I could not—I did not trust him or myself enough to try. But once, as I told him of this pain, and all the anger my pain had brought me, he did speak.

He told me, "You are not the only one."

At first when he said this I became angry and made him leave, but the more I thought on it, the more curious I felt. There had to be someone out there who had suffered as I had—someone who fought with their own nature as well as the nature of others. Someone who despised this world, but even more than that—wished they could belong in it.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Of course Kirin gets his own chapter! I'm not that cruel! I also love delving into Kirin's personality, truly. I've been an avid Himuku supporter for quite some time but I do ask myself what could have been with Kirin and Mukuro - it is quite a fluffy thought. Maybe I'll explore this soon. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed~!


	7. Hiei

**_Salvation_**

Chapter 7: Hiei

* * *

I laughed the first time I heard about him.

They talked about him like he was a big deal.

It wasn't like he was the biggest bastard around, and believe me, I told them, I'd seen some pretty big bastards.

Nah, it wasn't his power that impressed me at all. Everyone knew I wasn't fazed.

But truthfully, I was.

I was because he was another version of me.

A little kid, running around killing before he even understood the concept. A kid so full of hatred that only the death of those around him would make him feel anything close to pleasure.

That kid was pretty popular, and I understood why, because he was quickly headed down the same path that I had. He would be my next big enemy, competing for the title of king with everyone else and their grandmother, I was pretty sure, except he would actually get somewhere.

But I was wrong.

When I thought that things were going to get somewhere interesting, he vanished completely.

I had stopped thinking about him by the time Kirin gave me the gem, and then it took me a while to even make the connection.

I recalled being told the stories of how he had flaunted a gem that was by no ordinary coincidence so similar to the one I now possessed.

I wasn't done with him yet. I had something of his, something important to him, and I knew it was because it was nearly a trademark in his tales.

People like he and I, we did not keep things unless they were important to us.

He was connected to me now, and we would find each other one day.

-.-.-

I don't know what I expected to find when I looked at it. I guess I thought somehow I'd figure out what kind of person he was—well, other than the obvious—or maybe why it was important to him.

I was no closer to knowing him, but the attachment I began to understand.

It wasn't the beauty that drew a person in. It was the way it wrapped up your consciousness with the fog of a pair of loving arms you hadn't really known before. It spoke to you; it promised you that there were better things in the pile of shit you had been wading through all your life. It told you that even in sorrow, there would be something happy for you beyond the horizon, because love existed.

If it had been a person, I never would have believed it, but for some reason the tiny, fragile thing captured my heart and my trust in a way that nothing else had.

Now that I owned it, it was obvious to me why he would want it back.

It gave him a reason _not_ to become what I was.

And it gave me a reason to ask myself why I was still this way.

-.-.-

When I sent the message, I wondered if that would be enough to lure him to me—most anyone wouldn't deny the opportunity to be at the side of a powerful leader.

Well, perhaps if they knew me, but I doubted that Hiei did.

I had heard about where he was, because in the Makai, and especially for someone who needed to know everything like me, rumors spread fast. He had been here in our world recently, but had gone back to the human world.

I also heard that Raizen's offspring and another powerful demon, rumored to be Youko Kurama, were here, too.

I figured the race was on, and I'd take what was mine.

-.-.-

I'll admit that I was a little surprised when he finally showed up, but I guess I shouldn't have been.

Maybe it wasn't exactly surprise. Maybe it was more like anticipation. I'd been thinking about the guy more than I wanted to admit to myself, and so I was probably a little annoyed on top of that.

For the first time, I was going to meet him face-to-face, and I felt a little disarmed.

That annoyed me, too.

I was going to speak first, but he stopped me.

"Why did I have to fight so many of your men on the way through the forest?"

"Because I didn't tell those guys you were coming," I answered dully.

"Why the hell not?" he snapped.

"I'm sure you'll figure it out, but that's really not important. Since you're here, I'm assuming you're joining me, and that means you're going to start training right now."

He narrowed his eyes at me. "Good. I was under the impression you were going to try to distract me with more meaningless prattle."

Neither of us was very nice.

I led him down to the dungeon, where he'd already have fodder to kill from whatever previous "training" session had gone on down there, and I told Kirin to prepare five hundred A-class demons to battle or die in the coming months.

He would be strong—strong as I knew he could be.

I would give him no choice.

-.-.-

"You still sleeping or what?"

The carnage was pretty impressive, though it smelled terrible. He was probably used to the smell, though, having been down there for so long.

I found myself stepping over bloody limbs and sinew and organs—the works.

He cracked an eye at me.

"I gotta admit, I really didn't think you'd get this strong in six months. You're something else."

A bit of blood dropped off his arm and splattered on the floor.

"There's no point in lumping you in with the other A-class goons. I think it's time you tried out for my personal guard. What do you say?"

He blinked at me.

"I say the stronger I get, the further away I seem to get from you. You're a fucking monster," he told me. "What kind of demon are you? What's your true form?"

I thought about how right he probably was.

"Don't worry about me. It's not gonna be like 'Hiei, I am your father' when the mask comes off." No, I thought, it would be very, very different. "Though I guess it is about time I showed you what I look like, at least."

He seemed to consider this, but I didn't give him the time.

"All right, I'm gonna bring back the weakest guy in my guard. You beat him, and I'll show you my face and give you his spot in the ranks."

It was when he didn't seem interested that I threw out the bait, and he clamped onto it.

I'd learn him yet.

-.-.-

When they clashed, I found myself holding my breath.

I could tell already that something had changed in him—something that stopped him from fighting all-out, even though he had gone this long.

Like he had no choice but to be respectful even if it cost him his life.

A million things went through my mind, like why he was here and why he was going to throw it all away, but I didn't have any good answers.

I only knew that, when the moment was over, they had both chosen to die.

But I wasn't going to let that happen.

-.-.-

He had refused it when I first tried to give it to him, but it looked right there, laying on his chest next to the other.

It felt strange seeing it where it belonged, and it felt even more strange knowing that I had willingly given it up.

But it didn't matter. I knew him—with his consciousness seeping into mine, so open and so familiar.

I gave him what there was of me, and we faced each other with everything exposed, as if it was what we had both intended all along. Like we knew we were doing what we should have been.

Like for the first time, something so stupid made so much sense.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Gallons of apologies for the wait everyone! I've been insanely busy with schoolwork and wasn't struck with inspiration for this until, well, now. I hope the content makes up for that!


	8. Home

**_Salvation_**

Chapter 8: Home

* * *

It was after that day that I really began to change.

Oh, I had already started before that—ever since his stone had ended up in my hands, it started—but it was only a precursor for what was to come after.

I still didn't know exactly what I was doing; if I had to guess I'd say neither of us did. But we still kept on, curious maybe, confused definitely.

He was by my side and we wanted to see how everything would play out—for the world, and for us as individuals.

Maybe we'd die for it all. I guessed it wouldn't be so bad.

But when Hiei told me how my enemy had now decided to agree to something that he should have logically refused, I saw my world begin to turn again.

"Hiei," I addressed him, "inform everyone immediately—from here on, Mukuro's just another individual demon."

"You like that idea?" he asked. I didn't answer. "Me too."

And he couldn't see it, but for some reason I smiled.

-.-.-

I entered the tournament because I needed to know that someone could bring me down. I couldn't rest until I did.

I know it was counter-productive, but I realized I shouldn't be the one on the throne anymore. I'd only bring the world down to a place it didn't need to be. I wanted to be proven wrong. I wanted all the beliefs that I had fought for to be crushed into the ground so I could see something better rise up in its place.

It was not really myself I wanted to be defeated, but everything I had stood for.

I hadn't exactly expected to fight against him, but once I knew I would, I felt it was fitting.

It was a fight that we had probably both thought about before, but there was no reason for it then—we were on the same side, after all.

Now, it was everyone on his own side, and we just happened to be the next in line.

When I stared him down across the battlefield, though, I knew this fight was meant to be.

Neither of us really had a reason to be fighting even now, but we wanted one.

I stared at him, and I could see it in his eyes: _give me a reason, Mukuro_, he said.

I must have had a moment of insight when he swung at me, with the way he kept yelling, _tell me there's some reason we did all this._

He wanted to fight me, and I wanted him to—I felt I was pretty close to something good.

Then he sucked me in by hitting me where it hurt, and I knew we both wanted to resolve it.

_There's a reason you fought so long,_ I told him. I knew it because I felt it, too.

_I don't believe that,_ he tried to tell me, and I cornered him. He had no choice but to face me now.

He had no choice, and I wanted nothing more.

-.-.-

There's a way that the truth burns you, like the way acid or fire does.

This truth burned me hotter than any truth I had felt before, and at the same time, it never really tried to devour me.

It just wanted me to see.

I saw so many things while I struggled with the truth, but the biggest thing I realized was how I didn't just want it for myself.

In fact, I just wanted to prove him wrong, and maybe in that I'd find some sort of peace for myself. It was still selfish and yet it was the least selfish thing I had ever done.

I wanted to give him what he wanted, so that I could find what I did.

I don't know whether it was my desire to win over him or his desire to lose to me that inevitably got us there, but he accepted the truth, too, and he stumbled his way into my arms.

And somehow, there, we found home.

-.-.-

Today, he doesn't want to patrol, but he does anyway because he knows I'll bitch at him if he doesn't.

He thinks it's boring, but I don't even care about that. It's a sign things have really changed. It's something I've come to embrace.

Today, there's a world out there that neither of us was born into, and it's looking more hopeful every day. Somewhere out there, there's a kid who stopped fighting because he has to and killing because he wants to.

He'd probably laugh if I told him so, but I know it's what he thinks, too.

I can see it in the way he turns his eyes on me, without asking that question. He has his answer.

I have mine, too.

* * *

**Author's Note:** It's over, folks. I can honestly say it's been a very enjoyable ride for me and I hope you all have enjoyed it as well. Regarding the previous two chapters, there are a couple of things that I kept purposely vague so that most everyone's individual beliefs could be satisfied and I wouldn't be proposing any of my radical ideas onto your brains, but I obviously do have my opinions about a couple things regarding Mukuro that aren't exactly "canon". In any case... I'll be seeing you with more fic material soon!

With love,  
Andri


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